Poem Hunter: Poems - Poets - Poetry

She's rubbing his shoulder
and he's reading about
Western birds. There's a scoop
of light just above my knee

it resembles the world, the one I know
a layer of smoke spread thin, a shelf

my mind returns again &
again to the picture
you gave me. In pain.
I'm holding the receiver
in Denver some woman making
human eyes at me from her
blue seat, but I later
conclude she's crazy

I'm helpless, rushing back to fix the
"h," how can I help you

I think we tried this long enough
our cure
we would save us from everybody
else, we "got" it,
us

and now we're another falling down car
complaining animal
empty house


...

In the thin classroom, where your face
was noble and your words were all things,
I find this boily creature in your place;

find you disarranged, squatting on the window sill,
irrefutably placed up there,
like a hunk of some big frog
watching us through the V
of your woolen legs.


...

Look how wasteful time is to man,
Like autumn leaves, our moments fall,
We toil for peace, rest, and comfort's plan,
But at life's twilight, sicknesses creep,
And our golden years are spent in troubled sleep.

We plan for the future, with hope and desire,
But often find that pain and troubles conspire,
Our youthful vigor, lost in time's swift flight,
Leaves us with memories, and a fading light.

...

As cats bring their smiling
mouse-kills and hypnotised birds,
slinking home under the light
of a summer's morning
to offer the gift of a corpse,

you carry home the snake you thought
was sunning itself on a rock
at the river's edge:
sun-fretted, gracile,
it shimmies and sways in your hands
like a muscle of light,
and you gather it up like a braid
for my admiration.

I can't shake the old wife's tale
that snakes never die,
they hang in a seamless dream
of frogskin and water,
preserving a ribbon of heat
in a bone or a vein,
a cold-blooded creature's
promise of resurrection,

and I'm amazed to see you shuffle off
the woman I've know for years,
tracing the lithe, hard body, the hinge of the jaw,
the tension where sex might be, that I always assume
is neuter, when I walk our muffled house
at nightfall, throwing switches, locking doors.
...

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
...

The storm has raged, the sky turned gray,
You've walked through nights that stole the day.
Yet here you stand, though torn and worn,
A soul unbroken, battle-born.

The weight is heavy, the road is long,
But deep within, your heart beats strong.
No wound can take the light you hold,
No darkness dims a fire so bold.


...

No! 'twas the questing dream that first achieved her--
More sensed for knowing no material part,
More real that no false outward eye perceived her,
Too gross, but that pure eye within my heart.
Nor feigned I, as my spirit so embraced her,
These arms encumbered might; ah! could they too,
Would she not fade as vision e'er effaced her,
As loves in this weak flesh so often do?
In flesh she might escape me, might expire
In the vicissitudes through flesh that range;
But, being the shadow of my heart's desire,
She could not pass beyond me, could not change.
O paradox! Want food--you are richer fed!
Lack the coarse crumbs--you find diviner bread!
...

She plucked a blossom fair to see;
Upon my coat I let her pin it;
And thus we stood beneath the tree
A minute.

She turned her smiling face to me;
I saw a roguish sweetness in it;
I kissed her once;—it took, maybe,
A minute.


...

Upon a mount where wolves do mourn and cry
A tree stands high beneath heaven's sky
Its bulk hugs scars from Tide's unyielding pry
Each recites a tale of moon and stars gone dry

Below the men of thought, suppose, do think
For truth their quests on truth's wobbling ink
And saintly men in shapes of faith, do sink
In sea where holy beads of fat deems link


...